White Jacket Required by Jenna Weber

winking.
    â€œHa, ha. Very funny. I think I’m ready to take a little break from animals.” I set my suitcase near the stairs and followed everyone into the kitchen. “How’s school going, John?” I asked.
    â€œFine. Boring.” A typical seventeen-year-old’s answer. “Hey, Mom? Can I go to David’s house now?” he asked.
    Mom sighed. “We would love to have you stay for dinner, John, but if you really want to go, you can go.”
    â€œGreat. See ya, Jen!” John shouted as he slammed the front door behind him.
    Mom had made a delicious pasta dish using fettuccine, Brie cheese, and escarole, the slightly bitter green. She served heaping portions to my dad and me, alongside a simple green salad. I loved how the Brie coated every strand of slippery fettuccine and perfectly rounded out the flavor of the spicy greens. Mom was such a fabulous cook, and she took pride in feeding her family well with dishes that were not only tasty but healthy, too.
    Later that evening, I lay in my childhood bed and considered my options. I hadn’t let on to my parents that anything was wrong; I just needed time to really think. I could keep going, I could drop out, or . . . I could switch to the Pastry and Baking Program, the other culinary option offered at my school. I hadn’t given the P&B program much thought when I enrolled. It cost about the same as the Culinary program, and I just figured since I was there, I might as well do the whole shebang.
    The next day, I sat in my closet, organizing clothes I never wore anymore and going through old pairs of shoes, deciding what to take back to Orlando with me and what to donate to Goodwill. I was reaching up to grab a shoebox from the top shelf when a bright orange plastic box fell down, scattering note cards all over my closet floor. I jumped down from the chair I had been standing on and picked up one of the cards. The script was tiny and faded, but I could make out an old-fashioned recipe for Ritz Pie. I knew immediately that the box once had belonged to my great-grandmother, but had no idea how it had found its way into my closet.
    â€œMom!” I ran into her room with the Ritz Pie recipe in one hand and the orange box in the other. “Where did this come from?” I asked, holding out the box for her to see.
    â€œOh, I had totally forgotten about that! Grandma gave me that to give to you. Those are all of Great-Grandma’s recipes from when she had the bakery during World War Two. Grandma thought you might like to have them,” my mom said, a smile growing on her face.
    I had almost forgotten about my great-grandmother, who had worked as a baker and cake decorator during the Second World War, while her young husband fought on the front lines in Europe. After he was killed in the war, my great-grandmother had three young children to support, and she continued to work as a baker for the rest of her life. She had passed away when I was just a baby, so I never really knew her, but I wore her tiny emerald-studded ring on my right hand.
    â€œI think she would have wanted you to have these, Jennifer. She had the best dessert recipes!” Mom said.
    Back in my room, I carefully went through the cards, sitting cross-legged with them scattered all around me. I could have sworn they still smelled of spun sugar and buttercream icing. There were recipes for Swedish ginger cookies, sour-cream coffee cake, and a very retro chocolate pie made with saltine crackers and whipped cream. Other recipes called for old-fashioned ingredients such as clabbered milk and lard, and I immediately started thinking of how I could remake these desserts in a modern-day kitchen. I was taken with the story, the faded handwriting, and the recipes themselves, and suddenly all I wanted to do was bake. What if I reworked all these recipes for a more modern kitchen and then wrote a book about it? My heart started fluttering. Yes, I thought, that’s